Silliam  3par!5ane  CSarbiirton 


umuimMhiiilili. 


BV  213  .W37  1911 
Warburton,  William  Parsons. 
Prayer 


praipet 


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10U 


Copyright,  1911 

BY 

WILLIAM  PARSONS  WARBURTON 


trbe  imCcftcrbocftcc  ptees.  flew  Iffiotft 


A  paper  read  before  the  members  of 
the  Winchester  Clerical  Association, 


ui 


prater 


You  will,  I  trust,  pardon  me  for  intro- 
ducing, even  in  a  brotherly  circle 
like  our  own,  so  difficult  a  subject  as 
that  of  prayer.  I  do  so  with  the  great- 
est diffidence,  but  not  without  some  hope 
that  our  discussion  this  evening  may 
help  us,  in  the  mutual  exchange  of  ideas, 
to  profit  by  the  experience  of  others  on 
this  perhaps  the  deepest  of  all  questions, 
— to  reap  "  the  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye  that 
broods  and  sleeps  on  his  own  heart.  ^" 
An  Englishman,  as  a  rule,  takes  a  certain 
characteristic  pride  in  reserve,  in  not 

I  Wordsworth. 

I 


2  IPrasec 

wearing  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve, — but 
do  we  not  sometimes,  do  we  not  often, 
in  fact,  lose  valuable  opportunities  of 
sympathy  and  mutual  encouragement 
by  carrying  our  reticence  on  religious 
subjects  too  far?  Is  it  not  sometimes 
an  unworthy  self-consciousness  which 
makes  us  shrink  from  opening  our  hearts 
to  one  another  about  things  which, 
after  all  is  said  and  done,  are  the  most 
deeply  interesting,  the  most  urgently 
important  things  in  the  world — not  (to 
us  Christians)  abstract  speculations,  but 
emphatically  "the  things  which  belong 
unto  our  peace. "  I  beheve  it  to  be  one, 
and  not  the  least  admirable,  of  the  fea- 
tures of  that  so-called  Evangelicalism 
which  did  so  much  for  the  Church  of 
England  in  a  past  period,  and  is  now 
again  reasserting  itself  and  colouring 
the  teaching  of  men  supposed  to  stand 


as  it  were  at  the  opposite  pole  of  ecclesi- 
astical opinion,  that  it  has  always 
encouraged,  even  to  the  verge  of  inquis- 
itiveness,  the  mutual  exchange  among 
Christian  brethren  of  their  experiences 
on  the  needs  and  perils  of  the  soul.  Let 
us  speak  about  prayer  to-night,  asfratres 
fratribus,  Christiani  Christianis,  pericli- 
tati  periclitatis ,  tnorituri  morituris. 
(Brothers  to  brothers,  Christians  to 
Christians,  men  on  trial  to  men  on 
trial,  men  who  have  to  die  to  men  who 
have  to  die.) 

When  I  began  to  think  of  what  I 
should  say  to  you  I  soon  found  that 
prayer  might  well  form  the  basis,  not 
of  one  of  our  discussions,  but  of  a  series 
of  discussions,  and  that  it  would  be 
necessary  to  narrow  our  subject  in  every 
possible  way  in  order  to  bring  it  into 
manageable  compass.     Therefore,  in  be- 


4  prai2et 

ginning,  as  I  suppose  we  are  bound  to 
do,  with  the  position  of  those  who  ob- 
ject altogether  to  the  use  of  prayer,  I 
shall  class  them,  neglecting  minor  shades 
of  difference,  as  either  Atheistical  or 
Necessarian.  The  former  may  be  dis- 
missed at  once,  for  in  their  case  prayer 
logically  falls  to  the  ground  for  lack  of  an 
object:  "He  that  cometh  to  God  must 
believe  that  He  is.''  Of  the  Necessarians 
we  must  make  two  groups :  those,  on  the 
one  hand,  who  believe  that  the  author 
of  nature  has  bound  nature  down  once 
for  all  by  irreversible  and  invariable  laws, 
and  then  withdrawn  Himself  from  all 
concern  with  the  machinery  He  has  set 
in  motion;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  those 
religious  Necessarians  who  hold  that 
God,  being  supremely  wise,  loving,  and 
merciful,  arranges  everything  in  the  best 
possible  way,  and  that,  therefore,  if  the 


praeec  5 

course  of  nature  were  altered  in  any- 
particular,  it  could  only  be  altered  for 
the  worse.  In  the  eyes  of  the  former, 
prayer  is  unavailing;  in  the  eyes  of  the 
latter,  it  is  mischievous.  We  must 
now,  however,  confine  ourselves  to  the 
difficulties  of  those  who,  believing  that 
there  is  a  God,  and  a  God  at  once  om- 
nipotent, omniscient,  and  benevolent, 
fail  to  understand  how  the  march  of  His 
Eternal  Providence  can  be  affected  by 
the  prayer  of  ignorant,  capricious,  and 
short-sighted  creatures  of  a  day.  Well, 
whether  or  no  Necessarianism  be  any- 
thing more  than  a  barren  abstract  specu- 
lation,— whether  that  theory  be  true  or 
false, — every  human  being  acts,  and  can- 
not help  acting, — on  the  hypothesis  of  its 
falsehood.  He  acts  upon  the  conscious- 
ness of  liberty  of  choice,  and  no  argu- 
ment will  convince  him  that  he  had  no 


6  prater 

alternative.  We  act  as  if  we  were  free, 
and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  we  shall 
be  judged  as  if  we  were  free.  Necessity, 
therefore,  as  a  theory  of  life  and  a 
basis  of  conduct,  falls  to  the  ground 
and  leaves  us  responsible  for  our  ac- 
tions, and  therefore  all  the  more  in 
need  of  any  help  that  we  can  get,  to 
make  our  lives  conformable  to  the  Di- 
vine law  and  so  fulfil  the  conditions  of 
salvation. 

Well  then,  the  whole  of  mankind,  or 
certainly  the  whole  of  the  Christian 
world,  has  been  taught  by  the  accumu- 
lated testimony  of  millions  who  have 
tried  it  and  recorded  their  experience, 
that  prayer  is  heard  and  answered, 
and  that  in  prayer  the  worshipper  is 
brought  into  contact  with  a  source  of 
power  available  for  human  ends.  If  the 
verdict  of  human  experience  was  that 


God  neither  heard  nor  answered  prayer, 
it  would  surely  long  since  have  ceased  to 
be  offered;  but  the  whole  induction  is 
the  other  way,  and  indicates  that  God's 
dealings  with  us  are  influenced  by  prayer 
in  some  way  which  may  be  logically  in- 
explicable, but  is  sufficient  to  justify  its 
use,  and  commend  it  to  the  understand- 
ing as  well  as  to  the  heart.  "Prayer 
exists  as  a  fact  of  human  consciousness, 
and  it  is  therefore  arguable  that  it  has 
a  definite  purpose  in  the  economy  of 
nature,  since,  if  it  had  no  such  purpose, 
it  would  not  and  could  not  exist  at 
all." 

Let  us  then  consider  prayer  in  four 
aspects : 

Firstly,  in  respect  of  its  origin; 
Secondly,  of  its  obligations — 
Thirdly,  of  its  manner;  and 
Fourthly,  of  its  proper  subjects. 


8  prater 

I — Origin  of  Prayer 

The  writer  of  the  most  fascinating  book 
since  Herodotus  on  Eastern  travel,^  after 
describing  the  awful  solitariness  and  the 
sense  of  man's  littleness  in  journeying 
day  after  day  across  the  endless  sands 
of  the  desert,  exclaims:  "The  earth  is 
so  samely  that  your  eye  turns  towards 
Heaven — towards  Heaven,  I  mean,  in 
the  sense  of  sky ' ' — for  relief.  He  intends, 
I  suppose,  by  this  parenthesis  (heaven  in 
the  sense  of  sky)  to  intimate  that  it  is 
not  his  way  to  "turn  to  Heaven"  for  re- 
lief in  any  other  sense,  that  he  is  not 
misled  by  the  blind  instinct  which 
prompts  most  men  to  do  so,  when  the 
burden  of  human  destiny  seems  too  heavy 
to  bear  alone.  But  I  believe  that  the 
writer  was  deceiving  himself  in  this  Ti- 

^Eothen,  A.  W.  Kinglake. 


pragcr  9 

tanic  protest.  I  believe  there  has  never 
been  a  man  who  has  not  felt  at  some 
time  or  other  that  he  was  unequal  to 
cope  with  the  forces  of  destiny  without 
the  aid  of  some  unseen  power  outside 
himself  to  which  he  instinctively  appeals. 
Whatever  be  the  exact  etymology  of  the 
word  ''religion,"  it  bears  evidence  to 
the  fact  that  man  feels  bound  by  a 
tie,  which  he  acknowledges,  and  of 
which  he  cannot  rid  himself,  to  a  being 
whom  he  cannot  approach  and  cannot 
see,  but  of  whose  power  he  entertains 
no  doubt. 

And  is  not  this  feeling  the  rationale  of 
prayer?  an  attempt — an  instinct,  if  you 
will — to  find  a  link  between  things  visible 
and  things  unseen,  between  earth  and 
heaven,  between  God  and  man — an  at- 
tempt to  construct,  as  it  were,  an  aerial 
bridge  of  communication,  one  extremity 


10  prai^er 

of  which  stands  on  the  solid  earth  at  our 
feet,  and  the  other  (as  we  first  dimly 
surmise,  then  hopefully  trust,  and,  at 
last,  believe  and  know  with  a  certainty 
amounting  to  conviction)  is  based  on 
an  unseen  rock  beyond  the  void. 

Prayer  cannot  exist  without  at  least 
a  rudimentary  faith:  luaoY)?  xpoaeux'^^; 
p(ic6pov  xal  xpY)xl<;  tq  xIctk;  (of  all  prayer 
the  bed-rock  and  basis  is  faith).  We 
read  as  follows  in  Newman's  Apologia: 
*' Butler  teaches  us  that  probability  is 
the  guide  of  life.  The  danger  of  this 
doctrine  in  many  minds  is  its  tendency 
to  destroy  in  them  absolute  certainty, 
leading  them  to  consider  every  conclu- 
sion as  doubtful,  and  resolving  truth 
into  an  opinion  which  it  is  safe  to  obey 
or  profess,  but  not  possible  to  embrace 
with  full  internal  assent.  If  this  were 
allowed,  then  the  well-known  prayer,  *  O 


praigct  II 

God,  if  there  is  a  God,  save  my  soul, 
if  I  have  a  soul'  would  be  the  highest 
measure  of  devotion,  but  who  can  really 
pray  to  a  being  of  whose  existence  he  is 
in  doubt?" 

Scarcely  in  advance  of  this  absolutely 
contingent  and  hypothetical  position  is 
that  formulated,  in  a  moment  of  unac- 
customed despondency,  by  the  author  of 
In  Memoriam: 

"What  am  I? 
An  infant  crying  in  the  night — 
An  infant  crying  for  the  Hght, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry!" 

We  cannot  get  beyond  the  barrier  which 
separates  such  a  mere  ejaculation  of  help- 
lessness as  this  from  prayer  properly  so- 
called,  unless  we  postulate  that  our  cry 
be  at  least  articulate,  and  contain  a  pe- 
tition addressed  to  some  one  with  a 
power  to  help  us.    In  other  words,  prayer 


12  IPraser 

must  have  an  object  as  well  as  a  subject. 
This,  however,  does  not  carry  the  argu- 
ment very  far,  for  even  Fetish  worship 
has  an  object,  and  the  Athenian  thief, 
starting  in  the  morning  for  a  day's  thiev- 
ing, could  pray  "Ava^  "AxoXXov,  ^6q  pis 
xXexTsiv  (0  King  Apollo,  grant  to  me 
to  steal).  Prayer  in  order  to  be 
prayer  must  be  addressed  to  one  whom 
we  believe  to  be  in  sympathy,  or  to  be 
capable  of  sympathy,  with  our  moral  as- 
pirations; nor  do  I  think  that  it  can  be 
addressed  with  much  hope  of  success  to 
"a  stream  of  tendency"  or  to  "a  some- 
thing outside  of  ourselves  which  makes 
for  righteousness. "  *  *  He  that  cometh  to 
God  must  believe  that  He  is":  so  did 
Lucretius  believe  that  God  is,  but  be- 
tween the  above  clause  of  Scripture 
and  the  next,  "He  is  a  re  warder  of 
them  that  diligently  seek  Him,"  there 


Prai2cr  13 

is  a  gulf  wide   enough  to  take  in  the 
whole  range  of  Lucretian  philosophy : 

''Omnis  cnim  per  se  ,Divum  natura  necesse  est 
Immortali  aevo  summa  cum  pace  fruatur, 
Semota  ab  nostris  rebus  sejunctaque  long^, 
Ipsa  suis  pollens  opibus,  nihil  indiga  nostri, 
Nee  bene  promeritis  capitur  neque  tangitur  ira." 

(For  of  necessity  the  whole  nature  of  the  gods 

of  itself  enjoys  an  immortal  life  with  perfect 

peace. 
Remote  and  far  separate  from  our  affairs.. 
Itself  abounding  in  resources  of  its  own,  and 

wanting  nothing  of  ours, 
It  is  neither  propitiated  by  good  deservings,  nor 

affected  by  anger.) 

Remembering  then  the  short  limits 
of  our  time,  I  would  venture  to  offer  a 
definition,  or  rather  a  description  of 
prayer  as,  An  appeal  from  a  less  strong 
to  a  stronger  being,  whom  the  former 
believes  to  have  the  will  as  well  as  the 
power  to  help  him;  and,  in  that  fuller 
conception  of  prayer  with  which  Christ- 


14  praiset 

ians  are  familiar,  the  greater  strength 
appealed  to  is  no  less  than  Divine  omni- 
potence; and  the  will  to  help  us  can  be 
only  feebly  represented  by  the  tender- 
ness of  a  Father's  love. 

11. — Obligation  of  Prayer. 

Prayer  is  then,  as  we  have  seen, 
primarily  a  resource.  In  this  aspect, 
its  lowest  form  perhaps  is  the  cry 
forced  from  thoughtless  or  impenitent 
hearts  in  times  of  overwhelming  distress 
or  imminent  danger — in  burning  houses, 
or  sinking  ships.  I  can  hardly  think  of 
any  higher  conception  of  prayer,  in  the 
light  of  a  resource, than  what  I  once  heard 
of  in  the  case  of  a  devout  and  simple- 
minded  young  couple  who  were  attached 
to  each  other  and  were  forbidden  to  meet 
or  write;  but  who  consoled  themselves 
by  the  thought  that  they  could  still  re- 


member  each  other  in  their  prayers,  and 
so  communicate  with  each  other  "round 
by  Heaven."  But  prayer  is  not  only 
a  resource,  it  is  also  a  privilege,  and  a 
privilege  passing  into  an  obligation  and  a 
duty,  which  it  is  constantly  enjoined 
upon  us  in  revelation  not  to  let  slumber, 
but  to  stir  up  and  keep  alive  as  a  gift 
that  is  in  us.  The  man  without  prayer 
is  likened  by  S.  Chrysostom  to  a  fish  out 
of  water  and  gasping  for  life;  to  a  city 
without  walls,  and  exposed  to  all  assaults. 
Prayer  is,  he  says,  the  medicine  expelling 
spiritual  sicknesses.  It  is  that  to  the 
soul  which  nerves  are  to  the  body,  the 
panis  super siibstantialis  (supersubstan- 
tial  bread),  the  staff  of  spiritual  life. 

Last  December,  in  a  blinding  snow- 
storm, a  lugger  ran  aground  on  one  of 
the  dangerous  sand-banks  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mersey,  and  two  of  the  sailors 


i6  prai^er 

took  refuge  in  the  rigging.  Both  were 
ultimately  saved,  and  one  of  them  told 
it  of  the  other  that,  as  the  night  came  on, 
and  no  chance  of  rescue  appeared,  he 
heard  him  pray:  "God  Almighty,  spare 
me  again  this  turn:  it  's  fifteen  years 
come  next  Christmas  since  I  asked  any- 
thing from  you. "  This  was  doubtless  a 
true  prayer,  in  all  its  wrong-headed  sim- 
plicity and  ignorance ;  God  may  hear  and 
answer  such  prayers — often  does  hear 
and  answer  them — but  these  instinctive 
cries  of  helpless  terror,  even  when 
they  reach  the  listening  ear  of  God, 
are  not  like  the  ladder  set  up  from 
earth  to  Heaven  with  the  angels  of 
prayer  ascending,  and  the  angels  of 
blessing  descending  from  on  high. 

Texts  might  be  multiplied  to  prove 
that  constant  prayer  is  a  confessed  duty 
of  revealed  religion.     "Men  ought  al- 


prater  17 

ways  to  pray,  lifting  up  holy  hands  with- 
out wrath  or  doubting."  God  enjoins 
our  prayers,  and  cares  for  our  prayers, 
and  expects  our  prayers.  He  loves  to 
be  importuned  like  the  unjust  judge — to 
be  disturbed  by  repeated  insistence  like 
the  friend  at  midnight,  to  be  wrestled 
with  like  the  angel  at  the  ford,  and  not 
let  go  till  He  has  bestowed  a  blessing 
— Grata  Deo  hcec  vis  est  (This  violence 
is  pleasing  to  God).  "The  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  suffereth  violence  and  the 
violent  take  it  by  force ' '  of  prayer.  It  is 
a  talent  which  must  be  employed,  a 
tribute  which  must  be  paid  by  all  the 
citizens  of  Zion,  a  token  of  loyalty  and 
allegiance  to  our  Heavenly  King.  What 
says  the  saintly  Hooker:  "How  could 
any  kind  of  service  we  do,  or  can  do, 
find  greater  acceptance  than  prayer, 
which    showeth   our   concurrence   with 


i8  prager 

God  in  desiring  that  wherein  His  very 
nature  doth  most  delight.  Prayer  is  a 
work  common  to  the  Church  triumphant 
and  the  Church  militant,  to  men  with 
angels.  What  should  we  think  but  that 
so  much  of  our  lives  is  celestial  and  divine 
that  we  spend  in  prayer?" 

III. — Manner  of  Prayer, 

Next,  as  to  the  manner  of  prayer; 
and  first,  of  Public  Prayer,  Liturgies, 
and  Litanies.  I  believe  that  the  sym- 
pathy of  numbers  is  a  powerful  help 
to  devotion,  and  that  the  simultaneous 
prayer  of  many  minds  and  many  voices 
is  a  "  sursum  corda  "  (Lift  up  your  heartvs) , 
for  the  thoughts  of  all.  We  can  enter 
into  the  feeling  of  the  old  Evangelical 
hymn — 

"Lord,  how  delightful  't  is  to  see 
A  whole  assembly  worship  Thee;" 


and  there  is,  as  we  know,  a  special  pro- 
mise of  Christ,  that  "wheresoever  two  or 
three  are  gathered  together  in  His  name, 
there  is  He  in  the  midst  of  them." 
"  Multorum  preces''  says  Ambrose,  "im- 
possibile  est  contetnni."  (It  is  impos- 
sible that  the  prayers  of  a  number  of 
persons  should  be  despised.)  I  think, 
however,  that  our  Church  has  been 
rightly  guided  in  discouraging  public 
prayer  "extempore,"  so  called,  but  too 
often  wanting  in  spontaneity,  and  the 
result  of  elaborate  preparation  to  give  it 
the  appearance  of  spontaneity,  too  often 
not  the  effusion  of  a  full  and  fervent 
heart,  but  an  exercise  largely  influenced 
by  a  personal  and  self-conscious  element, 
both  in  the  speaker  and  the  congregation. 
Not  that  I  go  quite  as  far  as  good  Bishop 
Andrewes,  who  talks  of  "the  irksome 
deformities    whereby,   through    endless 


and  senseless  effusions  of  indigested 
prayers,  they  oftentimes  disgrace  in  in- 
sufferable manner  the  worthiest  part 
of  Christian  duty."  But  extempore 
prayer,  even  at  its  best,  is  liable,  as  it 
seems  to  my  mind,  to  a  fatal  initial  de- 
fect, namely,  that  the  silent  listening 
worshipper, not  knowing  what  is  coming, 
cannot  assent  to  the  petition, — cannot 
make  it  his  own, — till  he  who  is  praying 
has  passed  on  to  something  else,  so  that 
in  this  way  the  principle  of  simultaneous 
supplication  is  sacrificed,  and  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  promise  endangered,  "that 
if  two  of  you  shall  agree  on  earth  as 
touching  anything  that  they  shall  ask, 
it  shall  be  done  for  them  of  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven. "  In  the  case  of  an 
exposition,  the  hearer  can  agree  or  dis- 
agree, can  exercise  his  judgment,  and 
give  or  withhold  his  assent,  but  before 


addressing  a  prayer  to  the  Almighty  we 
ought  surely  to  have  made  up  our  minds 
whether  the  petition  is  one  which  we 
would  ourselves  put  up,  and  put  up  in 
that  form  at  the  throne  oi  grace.  In  the 
case  of  fixed  and  familiar  formularies  like 
our  own,  if  we  feel  an  imperfect  sym- 
pathy with  any  portion  of  them,  we  are 
at  liberty,  I  suppose,  to  abstain  from 
joining  in  it,  while  recognising  the  fact 
that  this  very  portion  may  be  a  vehicle 
of  grace  to  others  differently  constituted ; 
but  we  are  saved  from  the  inopportune- 
ness  of  exercising  the  critical  and  select- 
ive faculty  at  the  moment  when  the 
heart  should  be  outpouring  itself  to  God. 
Another  great  advantage  of  our  fami- 
liar Prayer  Book  liturgy  seems  to  me  to 
be  that,  by  what  we  may  surely  venture 
to  call  inspiration  from  on  high,  it  is  so 
framed  as  to  supply  a  model  for  all  prayer, 


22  prater 

whether  public  or  private.  Take  for 
example  the  order  of  Morning  Prayer. 
It  begins  with  a  Scripture  motto  giving 
the  key  to  the  sacred  season — an  exhor- 
tation to  repentance  followed  by  con- 
fession of  sins,  and  declaration  of  their 
forgiveness  through  Christ,  enabling 
contrite  and  absolved  hearts  to  join  with 
all  saints  in  the  blessed  filial  confidence 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  then  in  the 
universal  hymn  of  praise  of  a  redeemed 
and  rejoicing  people.  Then  follow  the 
Psalms  and  the  selected  studies  from  the 
Bible,  and  the  repetition  of  the  Creed  of 
the  Apostles  and  of  all  true  servants  of 
Christ  since  them.  Then  follows  the 
Litany,  in  which  the  Church  undoubted- 
ly sanctions  prayers  for  temporal  ob- 
jects (see  below),  and  winding  up  with 
the  General  Thanksgiving  for  our  crea- 
tion, preservation,  and  all  the  blessings 


prater  2$ 

of  this  life, — thanksgiving,  the  flower 
and  crown  of  all  human  access  to  the 
Presence  Chamber  of  God. 

It  would,  of  course,  be  undesirable 
that  private  prayer  should  be  of  this 
formal,  or,  indeed,  of  any  formal  charac- 
ter at  all,  but  it  is  most  important  to 
bear  in  mind  that  whenever  we  approach 
the  obvious  and  inevitable  Christian 
duty  of  saying  our  prayers,  they  should 
appropriately  begin  with  confession, 
ascend  through  the  Lord's  Prayer  to 
joyful  adoration;  then  might  follow  our 
meditation  on  the  teachings  of  Scripture 
— the  declaration  of  our  faith,  our 
petitions  for  particular  needs,  and  inter- 
cessions for  the  Church  and  for  individ- 
uals, and  our  thanksgivings  for  mercies 
received.  Thanksgiving  and  praise  are 
two  distinct  duties,  or  perhaps  one  duty 
regarded  from  two  opposite  points  of 


24  prater 

view,  the  subjective  and  the  objective. 
We  give  God  thanks  for  His  mercies  to 
ourselves,  but  we  also  give  Him  thanks 
as  our  Heavenly  King,  for  His  "own 
great  glory." 

IV. — Subjects  of  Prayer, 

Up  to  this  point  I  may  venture  to 
hope  that  my  brethren  have  not  seriously 
dissented  from  any  of  the  common  and 
well-known  views  to  which  I  have  called 
attention,  but  we  now  come  to  a  question 
upon  which  very  different  opinions  have 
been  expressed.  The  old  orthodox  be- 
lief that  the  prayer  of  Faith  can  prevail 
with  the  Almighty  to  alter  the  details 
of  His  temporal  Providence  in  His  deal- 
ings with  each  of  us  from  day  to  day,  is 
still  held  by  some  of  the  best  and  holiest 
amongst  us,  and  it  may  indeed  be  held 


praeec  25 

unblamably  by  all,  originating  as  it  does 
in  a  deep  sense  of  our  own  personal 
relations  with  God,  of  His  tender  Father- 
hood, His  daily  discipHne,  and  unceasing 
care.  It  is,  in  fact,  something  more  than 
a  pious  opinion;  for  prayer  is  undoubt- 
edly the  attitude  of  the  soul  in  which  we 
do  receive  blessings  of  all  kinds,  temporal 
no  less  than  spiritual,  at  the  hands  of 
God.  But  the  whole  theory  of  Divine  in- 
terpositions, and  of  special  Providences, 
when  regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  individual,  presents  grave  difficulties 
to  modem  thought.  It  comes  into 
collision  (i)  with  the  fact  that  we  are 
members  of  a  commimity ,  the  individuals 
composing  which  have  often  different, 
and  even  conflicting,  interests,  so  that 
what  would  be  to  the  benefit  of  one, 
would  be  to  the  detriment  of  another; 
and  (2)  with  the  growing  belief  that  God, 


26  prance 

in  His  government  of  the  external  world, 
acts  by  fixed  laws,  which  it  is  our  duty 
to  investigate,  and  our  highest  wisdom 
to  obey.  In  His  temporal  dealings  with 
His  children,  it  is  said,  we  must  rely 
upon  His  gracious  promise  that  all  things 
shall  work  together  for  our  good;  and  if, 
instead  of  submitting  our  wills  to  His 
will,  we  supplicate  our  Heavenly  Father 
for  this  or  that  modification  in  the  cir- 
cumstances of  our  lives,  or  pray  like 
Rachel,  for  that  which  He,  in  loving 
wisdom  withholds,  we  make  our  sorrows 
an  answer  to  our  prayers.  But  in  the 
spiritual  world  the  case  is  wholly  differ- 
ent,— there  we  can  be  dealt  with  indi- 
vidually; to  each  one  of  us,  as  we  Pro- 
testants beheve,  is  committed  the  care 
of  his  own  soul,  each  of  us  is,  in  his 
spiritual  relations,  alone  with  God;  and 
when  we  pray  to  Him — and  we  need  not 


pragcr  27 

surely  be  on  our  knees  to  pray — when  we 
pray  to  Him  to  make  us  holier,  gentler, 
purer,  more  submissive,  more  heavenly- 
minded,  we  cannot  go  wrong,  we  cannot 
ask  amiss,  for  we  are  "desiring  that 
which  He  doth  promise. "  And  what  we 
pray  for  ourselves  we  may  pray  in  Inter- 
cession for  others  also, — for  all  who  are 
near,  and  dear  to  us,  and  for  all,  far  off  or 
near,  for  whom  Christ  died,  that  they 
may  be  kept  from  temptation  or  carried 
safely  through  it;  that  they  may  not 
fall  into  sin,  or  having  fallen,  may  merci- 
fully be  restored;  that  they  may  grow 
in  grace  and  in  the  knowledge  of  Christ ; 
that  they  may  love  Him  and  be  loved 
of  Him,  and  daily  becoming  more  and 
more  like  Him,  may  be  admitted  to  dwell 
in  His  presence  for  ever.  And  if  this 
is  the  proper  sphere  of  prayer,  and  these 
its  legitimate  objects,  prayer  may  be- 


38  ptai^er 

come,  as  the  Apostle  says,  "unceasing"; 
or,  as  Origen  writes  in  his  beautiful 
tract  on  this  subject,  xaq  6  ^ioq  av  sTtq 
(Ata  pLeyaXTQ  xal  auvaxTO^eviQ  Tupoaeuxni  (the 
whole  life  might  be  one  great  and  con- 
tinuous prayer) :  or,  as  Tennyson,  in 
unconscious  imitation: 

"Thrice  blest,  whose  lives  are  faithful  prayers." 

The  silent  longing  for  a  closer  walk 
with  God,  the  sursum  corda  of  an  habit- 
ual contentment,  the  labour  which  is 
itself  a  prayer ;  all  these  are  as  acceptable 
in  the  sight  of  God  as  bended  knees  and 
suppliant  hands,  and  the  incense  of 
morning  and  evening  sacrifices. 

But  some  one  may  ask  with  the 
Roman  poet,  "Nil  ergo  potabunt 
homines? "  Are  men  to  ask  no 
gifts  of  heaven?  I  would  answer  in  his 
own  words  (of  course,  mutatis  mutandis) ; 


"Si  consilium  vis, 

Permittas  ipsis  expendere  numinibus  quid 

Conveniat  nobis,  rebusque  sit  utile  nostris. 

Carior  est  illis  homo  quam  sibi," 

(If  you  ask  for  advice,  let  the  gods  themselves 
deal  out  to  us  what  is  most  suitable  for  us,  and 
useful  for  our  affairs.  To  them  man  is  dearer 
than  to  himself. — Juvenal.) 

which  last  clause  I  may  remark  in 
passing,  always  strikes  me  as  one  of 
the  most  wonderful  utterances  of 
heathen  antiquity.  I  confess  I  myself 
shrink  from  directly  asking  specific  tem- 
poral gifts  from  God,  but  I  know  I  am  in 
a  minority,  and  have  no  doubt  that 
those  who  "can  receive"  the  doctrine  of 
special  interventions  in  answer  to  prayer 
have  greater  happiness  in  their  prayers; 
but  I  have  always  thought  that  Socrates 
was  right  in  saying  ''eu^effOs  Touq  6eou^ 
axXd)^  Ta  dyaGa  5iB6vai;  (Pray  to  the 
gods  simply  to  give  us  what  is  good;)  " 
and  Origen,  when  he  says,  quoting  the 


30  lptai2cr 

words  which  the  Apocryphal  gospel  of 
the  Nazarenes  treats  as  a  lost  saying  of 
Christ,  "atTetTe  toc  jAeyccXa,  xal  Ta  ^ixpa  ujjiiv 
xpoaT£0T(5a£Tat.  aiTStTS  Ta  Ixoupavta,  xai  toj 
lictyela  u^lTv  xpoaTeGTJffeTat, "  (Ask  for  the 
great  things  and  the  small  shall  be  added 
unto  you;  ask  for  the  heavenly  things 
and  the  earthly  things  shall  be  added 
unto  you).  If  we  make  mention  of  spe- 
cific temporal  wishes  to  God  in  prayer, 
must  it  not  always  be  with  an  ex- 
pressed or  implicit  condition,  "Thy 
will  not  mine  be  done"?  and  does  it 
not  seem  even  more  dutiful  and  natural 
simply  to  lay  our  case  before  Him,  and 
ask  Him  to  deal  with  it  "in  the  way  His 
wisdom  sees  the  best"?  When  Heze- 
kiah  read  the  threatening  letter  of  Sen- 
nacherib, he  went  up  into  the  House  of 
God  ''and  spread  it  before  the  Lord." 
When  he  was  told  he   must    die,   "he 


pragec  31 

turned  his  face  to  the  wall  and  prayed, " 
and  what  was  his  prayer?  '"Lord,  re- 
member how  I  have  walked  before  Thee 
in  truth  and  with  a  perfect  heart;'  and 
Hezekiah  wept  sore."  This  was  his 
''case:' 

Let  me  once  more  illustrate  my  mean- 
ing by  a  very  homely  parable — almost 
Socratic  in  its  homeliness — from  real  life. 
The  Archdeacon  of  Umtata  told  us  in  a 
lecture  at  Bishop  Sumner's  house  that 
once,  being  at  a  distance  from  home,  he 
received  his  customary  report  from  the 
head  native  boy  in  training  to  be  a  Mis- 
sionary ;  which  wound  up  by  saying  that 
his  trousers  had  a  hole  in  them  which 
would  cost  ^}/2d.  to  mend;  ''But  mind, 
dear  sir,"  he  added,  "I  am  not  begging, 
I  am  only  reporting." 

I  said  a  little  while  ago  that  prayer  is 
the  attitude  of  the  soul  in  which  we  re- 


32  ptaiget 

ceive  blessings  of  all  kinds,  temporal  as 
well  as  spiritual,  at  the  hands  of  God. 
I  firmly  believe  that  no  humble,  faithful 
prayer  falls  to  the  ground,  but  that  it 
always  receives  an  answer,  though  not 
always  the  direct  or  expected  answer. 
For  example,  we  may  pray  against  a  dis- 
appointment, and  the  answer  may  come 
in  the  shape  of  unexpected  strength  to 
bear  it.  We  may  pray  for  the  prolonga- 
tion of  an  ebbing  life,  and  the  answer 
may  be,  not  an  arrestation  of  the  fatal 
disease,  but  the  gift  of  "a  long  life^  even 
for  ever  and  ever." 

"An  answer,  not  what  you  long  for, 
But  diviner — will  come  some  day. 

Your  eyes  are  too  dim  to  see  it, 
But  strive  and  wait  and  pray."' 

You  have  borne  with  my  prose  parable 

— may  I  conclude  with  a  little  parable 

^  Adelaide  Procter.     Strive  and  wait  and  pray. 


prager  33 

in  verse  which  I  cut  out  from  an  old 
American  magazine? 

"Years  ago,  'way  up  in  heaven 

Bloomed  a  shining  star, 
And  to  it  there  came  an  Angel 

Flying  from  afar, 

"For  she  heard  the  star  complaining 

Of  its  bitter  fate,— 
'T  was  so  small,  and  0 !  its  Maker 

Made  so  many  great. 

'"Hasten  quickly,'  said  the  Angel, 

*To  Jerusalem; 
God  hath  made  thee,  thankless  spirit, 

Star  of  Bethlehem.'" 


Princeton  Theological 


Seminary-Speer  Library 


1     1 


012  01042  0059 


